Your Nurse Friday - An Introduction | Your Nurse Friday

All About Me

My name is Elais and this is all about me, Your Nurse Friday (in fact, you can find this on my about me page as well, because…this is about me!). I did not initially begin my educational path knowing that I wanted to be a nurse, I did, in fact, want to be a coroner. I was inspired by years of watching Scully on the X-Files – her skeptical and medically centered approach acting as a grounding force for the weekly bizarre and quirky episodes revolving around the paranormal. I had several opportunities to shadow medical professionals (surgeons and scientists) while in high school and attended a weeklong introduction to medicine after graduating high school, which is where I witnessed my first autopsy.

I started university in Vancouver, British Columbia feeling confident that the path towards my life as a coroner was the right one for me…unfortunately Chemistry 101 did not feel the same way. After I failed my first class ever (along with more than 70% of my classmates), I finished first term of my first year feeling completely lost. I decided to enroll in more arts based classes in my second term, which is how I found my way into entry level psychology and anthropology courses. I also started working at an audiophysiology laboratory, as an assistant helping to perform hearing studies on infants and adults, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also found myself enjoying my developmental psychology and medical anthropology courses and settled into a new realization that my occupational path may not lie amongst the hard sciences.

So as I started my third year, like all my other peers, I wondered what I was to do with my life. I knew that I enjoyed the medical aspects of anthropology and the hands-on experience of working with a whole range of people in the lab. I happened to pick up a pamphlet about nursing in my academic counselor’s office – it caught my eye because no where did it say I needed any chemistry courses to enter the program (yay for me!). This small trifold black and white piece of paper opened me up to a new occupational possibility – and I went for it. Fourth year I graduated with a degree in psychology and anthropology and was admitted to an intensive three-year, year-round nursing program in a city that neighbored Vancouver. It was there that I found a love for a nursing, then passion for wound care, and ultimately a calling to home health care.

Through a whirlwind of four years, three moves (one international), a graduation, and a marriage, I found myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico, starting my first business. My name is Elais, I am a home health nurse, and I am part owner and operator of Nurses With Heart Home Care. Your Nurse Friday is a blog of my experiences as a nurse, small business owner, and Canadian/American living in the Southwest. I hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing your thoughts!